This invention relates to a remote steering system for marine propulsion crafts and more particularly to an improved control for steering of an outboard drive and also controlling the powering engine and to an improved arrangement for indicating the steered position of the outboard drive.
In many forms of marine propulsion arrangements, the watercraft is steered by pivoting the outboard drive about a vertically extending axis so as to effect rotation of the propulsion unit and to steer the watercraft. This type of steering arrangement is conventionally employed in both outboard motors and in the outboard drive portion of an inboard/outboard drive. It has been proposed to provide a control for such outboard drives wherein the operator may set the desired angular position through a remote setting device and also wherein the operator may override that setting of the outboard drive through a manually operated steering control. Such an arrangement is shown in the copending application entitled "Marine Steering Apparatus", Ser. No. 864,444, filed May 16, 1986, in the names of Ryoichi Nakase and Masayoshi Nanami, and assigned to the assignee of this application.
Frequently, the position setting device is a very small unit that can be held in the hand of an operator and thus affords the opportunity for the operator to control the watercraft from any of a plurality of locations. The operator may steer the outboard drive by manipulating this hand held unit, particularly to provide steering in emergency conditions. However, the types of devices previously proposed only permit the operator to steer the outboard drive from this location and hence do not afford the degree of control which may be desired under some circumstances.
It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide an improved remote control system for an outboard drive wherein both steering and the propulsion unit may be controlled from a hand held unit.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved and compact remote control device for an outboard drive that may be held in the hand of an operator and which permits both steering of the outboard drive and stopping of its propulsion unit.
In connection with the steering systems for outboard drives and particularly those embodying a remote control, it is desirable, if not necessary, to incorporate a sensing device for indicating the steered position of the outboard drive. By its very nature, the sensing device requires a pair of relatively movable elements that provide a sensing signal and one of these elements must be fixed for movement with the outboard drive upon its steering while the other of the elements must be fixed relative to the associated watercraft. Such sensing devices must also accommodate the fact that it is conventional to tilt the outboard drive about a horizontally extending tilt axis. The sensing device should accommodate such tilting movement and not interfere with it. In addition, the tilting movement should not affect the signal transmitted by the sensing device. That is, the sensing device should not provide an indication of a change in steering condition merely because the outboard drive has been tilted about its tilt axis.
It is, therefore, a still further object of this invention to provide an improved device for sensing the steered position of an outboard drive.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a compact and highly reliable device for indicating the steered position of an outboard drive.
It is a yet further object of the invention to provide a steering position sensor for an outboard drive that will accommodate tilting movement of the outboard drive about a horizontally disposed tilt axis.